Alfie knows what an addict looks like – God knows they’d spent enough time at school on the subject. Addicts start every day with their substance of choice, can’t function without it. Alfie was adamant; he didn’t have a coke habit. He could go days without touching the stuff, a week sometimes. And when he did get on it, it tended to be just a line chopped up for him by a happy punter, or the dust off the scales when he was weighing it out. But as time went by, there seemed to be more dust finding its way off the scales. And margins being tight as they are, the dust off the scales is the margin. Alfie may have chosen not to notice, but he was hoovering up the profits. And a bit on top of that.

Not an addict, though. Of that he was certain. He didn’t notice that taking cocaine was all he really thought about. All that he looked forward to. Some pathway had got closed off in his brain. Nothing made him happy any more. Nothing could excite him. The simple pleasure of a natural high had been lost to him. Even when he laughed, when he might be close to enjoyment, it would turn hollow with the realization of how much better this moment would be with some gear.

And here he is. Now. A seventeen-year-old who’s become numb to the joys of life, blind to its brightness. Unable to sleep or eat. Insurmountable debts owed on fraudulent loans in his mum’s name. All those things he treated his family to now pawned: telly, video games, even the microwave.

My poor mum, he thinks. My poor little brothers and sisters. How I’ve let you down. How much better off you’ll be without this worthless piece of shit dragging you under. You deserve so much better.

Alfie veers left. Never mind the poor visibility; he’d know this view anywhere. About thirty metres away stands a solitary horse chestnut tree. Its branches, newly stripped by autumn frosts, are like skinny black arms with a hundred elbows. Its shape lends itself to climbing and he’s been up it countless times.

The trick to success at conkers, his dad had explained, was having the right conker to begin with. The mistake everyone makes, he reckoned, is to collect what he termed the rejects on the ground. No. The tree hangs on to the best ones. And the finest of the lot, they’re kept well out of reach, right up the top.